FUJITSU BLADES BX300 PXE INSTALLATION

Transcription

1 FUJITSU BLADES BX300 PXE INSTALLATION to install this hardware we'll use the slack-kickstart software, the required version is 0.4.b or greater What we'll do is connect to he blade from the serial console, boot the machine through the network, using a precompiled kernel and a root image created with slack-kickstart, then we will start the installation taking the packages from a working repository In order to be able to boot the blade from the net, we will need a server offering dhcp/tftp services, and this server must be placed on the same network of the server that we want to install. Let's start assuming that we have an already working kernel called bzimage and a sample.gz root image, the points that we need to face are the following: 1. Boot server preparation this first operation is needed to prepare the environment for the next steps, this procedure is already described in the slackkickstart howto that can be found at the url: there is a trick that is needed : append the following command at the boot parameter, this is made to enable the output to be displayed on the serial line console=ttys0,9600 I'm reporting the essential steps cut&past-ing it from the official site: a) install dhcp server (swaret install dhcp) b) install inetd (swaret install inetd) c) install syslinux (swaret install syslinux) once the packets are installed and the dependences are resolved, we can move on to the configuration phase a) /etc/dhcpd.conf in this file we should have the following lines : allow booting; allow bootp; option domain-name "foo.net"; # domain of the server option subnet-mask ; option broadcast-address ; option domain-name-servers ; option routers ; ddns-update-style none; allow unknown-clients; subnet netmask { # ip cl server range ; next-server ; # ip of tftp/dhcp server filename "pxelinux.0"; } once the configuration file is ready (the net parameter must be set according to the network that is going to be used) it is possible to start the dhcp daemon with the command line /usr/sbin/dhcpd, then it is possible to verify that the server

2 is running checking if the process is listening on udp port number 67 b) /etc/inetd.conf in this file we have to create an entry in the format : tftp dgram udp wait root /usr/sbin/in.tftpd in.tftpd -s /tftpboot -r blksize even in this case once the inetd daemon is started with the runlevel script /etc/rc.d/rc.inetd, it is possible to verify that the tftp server is running by checking that the process is listening on udp port number 69. c) directory /tftpboot this directory is used to contain the files that the tftp server allows to download, the needed files are : bzimage (the kernel that the client machine will use) pxelinux.0 (pxe loader, the name must match the name specified in the point a, this file is part of the syslinux package and by default is found at the path /usr/share/syslinux/pxelinux.0) sample.gz (this is the name of the root image created with slack kickstart and it must match the name specified in the next point) pxelinux.cfg (thisis not a file but a directory and it must contain all the configuration files for the machines that we want to install, the essential file is called default) A configuration file should be made like this example : default Kickstart prompt 0 label Kickstart kernel bzimage append initrd=sample.gz devfs=nomount load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 ramdisk_size=16384 rw root=/dev/ram console=ttys0,9600 (note that last part, from append to console=ttys0,9600 is all on a single line) 2. Setup of the server to install to enable it to boot from the network. Logging into the management part of the chassis fujitsu the following menu' is shown, and the first option (1 Management Agent)is the one that needs to be chosen

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4 in the new screen, the option number 4 (Server Blade) should be selected, in order to get the full list of the blades from the full list all we need to do is to select the entry of the blade we want to install

5 once the blade to install is chosen the following screen is shown and the voice number 1 must be chosen (Server Blade Control Information) in this way we can reach the controls to shut down/ startup the machine. From this screen we can choose the voice number 3 (Set Server Boot Mode) that enables us to choose the boot device

6 from this screen we can setup as boot device the network interface that is connected on the same subnet of the dhcp/tftp server once the boot device is set up we can go back to the previous screen where we can choose the option number 1 (Server power)

7 from this menu' it is possible to reboot the server by selecting the option numebr 4 (hard reset) this function acts just like the reset key on standard machines it is now possible to follow the boot of the server going back to the initial screen and selecting the option number 3 (Console Redirection)

8 then we can select the option number 1 (Console Redirect Server Blade) then we are in the blades menu where we can choose the one that we rebooted

9 3. Boot e installation before we reboot a blade is is useful to check some bios parameters that may help us during the procedure : The first option is : Extended Memory Test, this option can be found in the first screen(main); the suggested value is Disabled another interesting option is Summary Screen, this can be found in the second bios screen(advanced) and as the former, the suggested value is Disabled

10 the last option is inside a submenu of the menu' Advanced, the name of the submenu is : Console Redirection, the name of the option is : Continue C.R. After Post and the suggested value is on going back to the reboot phase, we should now see a screen like this one :

11 4. and once the boot has finished we should see : when we're returned to the prompt we can start the real installation with the command setup, so after setup we will have the partitioning, the copy and installation of packages from the repository and so on